


Buttercups

by whatkindofnameisella



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Kinda, Mutual Pining, Pining, canon non-compliant, ep 91 came right for my throat and said you will be finishing this because they are in love tm, i miss spring/summer so much, this is just a little fun thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22323985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatkindofnameisella/pseuds/whatkindofnameisella
Summary: “It’s been quite a bit since we’ve been some place with a lot of sun, hasn’t it?”“Yes,” she says, and a smile crawls up those freckled cheeks as she closes her eyes and tilts her head up into the sun, the buttercups that litter this field weaved into the ornaments on her horns and through her hair. It complements her skin ridiculously well. “It has.”A field filled with wind and sun and buttercups. And a wizard who is horribly in love with a cleric weaving him some flowers.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 18
Kudos: 116





	Buttercups

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't planning on finishing this up but then ep 91 hit and. Welp. The widojest spirit moved me to finish it. There's no real context for this, I just miss spring & summer and think these two are the epitome of romance, but I imagine it taking place some time after the current arc, somewhere in the Empire, one morning before the Nein are taking off to continue traveling. Enjoy :-)

“Hello, Caleb,” she says, finding a spot in the grass next to him. He does not have a moment to open his mouth before she is leaning back on her hands, wiggling her toes and basking in the wind and sun. “It’s such a nice day today, isn’t it?” The sentence is let out on the other end of a deep sigh, more of a clearing of something inside her than an exhale, and Caleb is still trying to catch up to the fact that she has sat down beside him as she says it.

“Er, _ja_ , it is.” He fiddles with the string bookmark he has attached to tome on his lap himself, sliding it between the pages he is on because he knows that if he doesn’t by the end of this conversation it will be lost. The pages flick up occasionally in the slight breeze and he has half the mind to shift his fingers over and keep them down as he stares at her. “It’s been quite a bit since we’ve been some place with a lot of sun, hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” she says, and a smile crawls up those freckled cheeks as she closes her eyes and tilts her head up into the sun, the buttercups that litter this field weaved into the ornaments on her horns and through her hair. It complements her skin ridiculously well. “It has.” She breathes in deep through her nose, and the scent must be sweet on the wind because the dimples in her cheeks deepen and she opens her eyes to tilt her head and look at him, and the feeling is like he’s been socked in the stomach. “And it feels so. Good.”

He nods, because he is a mess of butterflies and sunlight and a cracked but healing soul that she somehow has managed to touch and it is all he can think to do. And _schisse_ , there is a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth and a content settling somewhere deep in his chest and gods, it is a fruitless effort to try and find some focus on this book again with her sitting here besides him, isn’t it? He still stares at the pages, though, because he does not have anything better to do with himself besides sit in the wind and the sun and this field filled with buttercups with a book in his lap and pretend he is he is not enamored by her.

She is tapping her foot to some imaginary beat and he can see her watching him from the corner of his eye, focused on some part of him he could not imagine is as interesting as she is devoting the time to look at it is, and she furrows her brow before saying, “These flowers would look really nice in your hair, you know.”

He looks up to her, blinking as if he has been pulled out of reading and is not simply in wonder of her, “What?”

She smiles, kind and teasing, “I said, that these flowers would look really pretty in your hair.”

“Oh,” he says, dumbly, “You think so?”

She pushes off her hands, an almost offended tone to her voice, “Of course, Caleb! Here, just wait a minute – “ And then she is standing up, wandering around in the area closest to them, every now and then bending down to pick up a new yellow wildflower until there is a small bouquet of seven or so gathered in her hands. She skips back to him, plops back down into the grass and holds the flowers up to his ear (he has to stop himself from flinching away for a moment, gods) and, promptly deciding that the number of flowers is sufficient, pulls away to settle the flowers in her lap. She takes them and weaves the stems together, without rush or hurry, those calloused hands which have held axes and slung spells and been covered in gore and blood taking one small stem, and then another, and weaving them into something that will hold behind his ear, the faint traces of a song being hummed under her breath.

And oh, he realizes, it has been a slow undoing, brought on by those ink stained, calloused fingers gently pulling at the frayed edges of him until there is nothing left but someone who is fragile and raw and caught up by the simple presence of her. And the sun is out for what feels like the first time in years as the wind blows through their hair and those hands are creating something for him because she looked at this field and it was the first thing that came to mind, and is love (because that’s what it is, isn’t it, love) supposed to feel like this? He does not remember it from before, the healing and the aching and the serendipity of finding the other. He remembers needing and orbiting and feeling like if the other wasn’t around you would somehow be falling apart but he does not remember the sweet freedom of the falling long before the realizing ever comes to mind, and oh, how sweet it is, to feel like she did not choose him because it was all either of them had left but because the quiet moments trickled in and were left to sit like honey crystalizing slowly in a jar. 

“Done!” she says, nearly a song, and the smile on her face threatens to outshine the sun that has been warming them as they sit here. She takes the small band of buttercups and threads it behind his ear, those fingers (ink stained and calloused and injured and defacers of all things holy and _creating something, here and now and simple, for him_ ) brushing against his skin for just a moment, a cool and sublime feeling, and he has the impulse to reach out and grab her hand and hold it close to his face, to pull her in and feel every bit of that skin over his until he has been enveloped by every part of her and – 

She pulls her hand back into her lap tilts her head, surveying the final result. She sits poised, lips (he wants to be touched by those too, or, rather, wants to touch them – wants to cover them in his own until they are breathless and bruised because he is sure that they are just as sweet and wonderful as the rest of her) pursed before they creep up into a grin that is just as devastating as the last before speaking again. “It looks absolutely wonderful, Caleb.”

He looks at her and there is a low, wonderful ache pressing against his heart at the sight of the buttercups flowering in her hair. “ _Ja_ , you think so?”

“Totally!” She exclaims, before pushing up onto one knee, and then the other, skirt billowing around her ankles in the slight wind. “It super makes you look, like, really handsome.” She smiles down at him for a moment before adding, “I like it.”

Well, he is a mess of healing and hoping and butterflies and a million other things he does not even begin to know how to unravel, so it is all he can do to stare up and try to take in the presence of her. He breathes in deep through his chest, blinks a few times, and has the mind to respond, “Well, I am – I am glad that you like it. I’ll wear it for as long as it lasts.”

“That would be nice,” and it is a quiet, tender thing that almost gets lost on the wind. “Are you going to stay here? I’m going to go walk with Yasha while we still have the time. There are lots of pretty flowers around here she wants to collect.”

“Um. _Ja_. There are.”

She waits a moment before a teasing smirk starts rising up on the corners of her mouth, “So are you… going to join us, or…?”

He blinks and realizes he has been on auto pilot because she has been here for minutes (two minutes and thirty six seconds, to be exact) and he is still not caught up with her and the fact that she has chosen to be around him in all his broken and clumsy and simple existence. “Uh – _ja_ – no, no I think I am fine right here for now. You know…” he holds up the book in a futile attempt to seem occupied, “It is good reading weather.”

She shrugs, an unfairly coquette thing, “Okay then, suit yourself.” She pauses for a moment, on the verge of turning up the hill, and she looks down at him with something sweet and simple and adoring (and how strange is it, that he should be looked at and adored after all this time) in her eyes. And she smiles. “Bye, Caleb.” 

And then she is turning away, walking through this sunny field with buttercups strung through her hair, leaving him dumbstruck and aching and a trail of wildflowers in her wake.


End file.
